And finally.......... a dilemma

In my last blog I posted a photograph of Amelie looking lovely and pregnant. She was the last Patou female still waiting to deliver.
Millie was expecting a Lavender Park Tulley cria. It was a late decision last October to mate her and it was a one off opportunity, one mating. The great masterplan was to try and breed our next herdsire, hence Millie, our best brown female was the chosen one and we hoped for a brown male.

On Friday, just before lunch, Millie did indeed give birth to a super little brown male. A bit of a tiddler at 6.95kg but perfectly formed and very lively.

He was up on his feet quickly and apparently feeding well within an hour or so. However, Millie has had problems feeding her last two cria, Vanilla and Tsar. She gets an enormous udder full of milk with huge teats and the cria struggle to get on and get enough milk. As we knew this we were prepared, so there has been a lot of milking going on over the past three days. Sue is the expert, I am merely the holder. Luckily Millie is a friendly girl and although she makes a bit of a scene initially she soon settles down and allows the process to take place.

We are also supplementing him with a bottle to make sure he is getting enough volume. He is doing very well and although in the above picture he has milky chops as a result of me bottle feeding him, it did take me ten minutes to catch him! Millie sees me coming and they are off! It is a case of trudging on and wearing them down.

Sue and I are completely smitten with the little man (as is his mother) but we do have a dilemma. As he was our last cria this year, born on the day the Scottish independence votes were counted, and the votes from the Highlands were the last votes to be counted, I suggested we call him Highlander. Sue, using similar thought processes came up with Braveheart and Gus, being eleven and bonkers favours Hercules.

As a result, on his little husbandry card (I like to keep my records in a card index, old fashioned I know but dependable!) it simply says Patou............... A decision will be made today, we will be arm wrestling for the privilege of naming him later (Sue and Gus don't know this yet!)